Shea, my floors are very cold in winter, and my ferrets made it through
last winter fine.  Although last winter was milder than normal... We live
in a houseboat - a floating home built in 1928 - that must have been
before insulation was invented!  The major winter problem is that winter
wind seems to come up through the floor boards and swirls around our feet.
 
The first couple of years we had ferrets they were in cages and kept in the
main part of the house.  Now the ferrets have their own room, with an air
conditioner but no heat.  Heat from the adjoining room must flow through
the open slider door and over the barricaid.  The a/c was left running on
a low setting during most of last winter as it helps clear the air in their
room.
 
If Trixie's sleep box is up off the floor, she should be fine over the
winter.  Our ferrets sleep in those flower printed boxes used for storage.
We cut a circle in a convenient location for ingress/egress, and put their
sleep sacks inside the box.  If you keep Trixie in a cage you can still
use a box, just a much smaller one.  Don't use plastic storage boxes as
condensation forms in them.  You need cardboard which will breath.
 
Floor poopers live at our house too, and it can be really tough.  I put
towels down, then set the litter pans on the towels.  I'll find about half
the poops inside the pan, half around it, but the towels make clean- up
easier.  The towels are picked up in the morning and again at night, so we
are going through 2 washer loads of towels each day.  Oh - they are washed
but not dried.  That's right, I put wet towels on the floors for my ferrets
to walk on!  It didn't start out that way, but I didn't have time to dry
the towels one day and it worked just fine.  The damp towels actually aid
in keeping the ferret room floors and ferrets feet cleaner.  Because our
ferrets have a room of their own, no ferrets are forced to walk around on
wet towels all day.  They can choose to use the litter pans instead!
 
At our house, rooms the ferrets use are all vinyl covered, the carpeted
areas are off limits.  I have had soiled living room carpet however, and
pour Natures Miracle on the spot, letting it dry without blotting.  It
takes over a week and sometimes has to be re-treated.  If you are finding a
poop on the carpet - what you aren't seeing is urine soaked carpet, so to
Trixie it smells like the place to go!  If this is your main living room
entry door, you could cut away the carpet there and put in a vinyl 'entry
area'.  The subflooring is probably saturated and should be treated and
allowed to dry before putting vinyl over it.
 
Good luck in getting Trixie a little buddy, and in coping with their
'present' leaving!
 
Georgia - the left coast one...
[Posted in FML issue 3185]